In The Wake of the King of Love: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. & Our Nation Today
January 15th is a day of many wonderous, splendid, and even infamous things. On that day in AD 69, Otho seized power of Rome in a brutal military coup d’état, then declared himself Emperor; lasting a mere 91 days, his reign was one of the shortest in Roman history. In 1559, on January 15th, Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England at Westminster Abbey; during her reign, coined the Elizabethan era, the arts flourished and the world met it’s greatest playwright, the Bard of Avon, Williams Shakespeare. On January 15th, in 1777, the republic that would ultimately become the modern U.S. state Vermont declared it’s independence from Britain and other colonies; it was admitted to the Union less than 20 years later. In 1844, the famed University of Notre Dame du Lac, colloquially known simply as Notre Dame, was chartered by the State of Indiana on January 15; though it’s scholarly courses are among the nation’s best, it’s football program is the stuff of legend. On January 15, in 1889, the Coca-Cola Company was incorporated, and, in 1908, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the first Greek-letter organization founded by African-American women, was established. The list of notable January 15th events continues impressively. On that day, The Pentagon was dedicated in 1943; the very first Super Bowl was played in Los Angeles in 1967; the former Soviet Union launched the spacecraft Soyuz 5 (which completed the first ever docking of two manned spacecraft) in 1969; President Richard Nixon suspended offensive actions in the Vietnam War in 1973; our beloved source-of-knowledge Wikipedia debuted online in 2001; and, after losing all engine power, US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, thereby avoiding catastrophe, saving the 155 lives aboard, and inspiring the Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood blockbuster Sully: Miracle on the Hudson.
Yet, of all the weighty and world-defining historical happenings that have taken place on January 15th, one event stands above the others by miles in it’s impact on the modern world, and the American nation. It is a birth; but no ordinary one, for it towers like the Burj Dubai amongst a suburban neighborhood of two-story bungalows. Channeling The Artchitect from The Matrix: In this birth, we witness the eventuality of an anomaly; an integral systemic anomaly that created seismic fluctuations in an otherwise perfect equation of modern captivity. Yes: of all the epochal occasions of the day, January 15th holds most famously the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Nobel laureate Civil Rights Activist. That his birth is heralded more than any of the other events to take place on the 15th day of January is a testament to the voltage of his legacy, the lasting presence of his influence, and the global paradigm-shifts he forged.
Ninety years ago, Michael King, Jr. was born in a family home in Atlanta, Georgia. He was named after his father, Michael King, Sr., a Baptist pastor and missionary. When the father underwent a period of metamorphosis and chose the new name Martin Luther King, Sr., he also decided to legally change the name of his son, who was, by then, five years old.
In doing so, at five years old, the young King received the moniker which is now a household name, holding international and historical weight for the work he would go on to accomplish.
Was there some magic in that name change; was there a shift when Michael King, Jr. became Martin Luther King, Jr.? After all, Martin Luther was also the name of the legendary German monk, priest, composer and theologian born in 15th Century Europe (there’s that number 15 again!) who was the seminal force during the Protestant Reformation. Did the name change align the cosmos in such a way that the latter Martin Luther would rise to be as famous a spiritual rebel-leader as the former Martin Luther, or was it mere coincidence and serendipity? Only the fates know. What we can affirm, however, is that the latter Martin Luther became the single most important figure in the struggle for American Civil Rights and, indeed, human rights across the globe.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was the middle child of three siblings, born to a strict and dominating minister father and a mother who was heavily involved in his father’s church. (She’d been a teacher, but in 1926, married women were not allowed to teach, so she had to quit on her wedding day.) Dr. King described her as a matriarch of the family, who set forth “those motherly cares, the lack of which leaves a missing link in life”. His father, on the other hand, was a strict and proud man; like most men of that generation he was forceful in his discipline of the young King. One of their neighbors heard the elder King once say that he would make something of the younger King “even if he had to beat him to death.” It’s hard to hold the father accountable by modern standards; the discipline of children was different then, across the racial and socio-economic board. However, specifically, Black parents had to be exceedingly tough with their children in order to prepare them for a world that considered their lives and bodies as worthless. Black parents raised and trained their children to have the constitution of soldiers so that they could survive a world where they could be killed for sport and entertainment by racists as easily as gladiators died in the Coliseum. The elder King was also a prominent figure in the early Civil Rights struggle, and the younger King, followed in his father’s footsteps.
His father’s discipline guidance paid off. The young King was a notable speaker even as a child, a leader on his high school debate team, and the youngest assistant manager at one the Atlanta Journal’s newspaper delivery stations. Though he struggled with depression at an early age (a mental illness that would haunt him throughout his life) and even attempted to commit suicide after the death of his grandmother by jumping from a second-story window, he survived and soldiered on through the darkness that always seems to plague great minds. He even had issues with Christianity, and rejected it at first, though later he would embrace it, perhaps as a spiritual and mental means to an end. After eighth grade, he was promoted straight to the tenth grade based on his excellent academic standard. While in eleventh grade, Morehouse College revealed they would accept any student who could pass their entrance exam, including high school seniors and juniors. At 15 years old, already a junior, King passed the exam and became a student at Morehouse. He entered the ministry at 18, graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts at 19, received his Bachelor of Divinity at 23 from Crozier Theological Seminary, was elected president of the student body as he continued his studies, dated a white woman but was forced to break it off due to racial issues of the time, married Coretta Scott at 25, became a pastor of his first church, and received his doctorate at the age of 26 from Boston University.
He quickly joined the burgeoning Civil Rights Movements. In 1955, two black women refused to give up their seats: Claudette Colvin, who was 15 years old at the time, and Rosa Parks. The latter’s struggle became the most famous, and Dr. King planned the Montgomery Bus Boycott in response. Black people avoided the busses for over a year, King was arrested for his role and leadership in the boycott, and his home was even bombed. A powerful win was secured, however: The United States District Court entered a ruling that prevented any further racial segregation on Montgomery buses. With this victory, Dr. King, charismatic and inspiring, was elevated to national prominence in only a year’s time.
Much would follow. He’d create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which had a profound influence on the fight to end racism in the South. He was arrested many times more as intimidation tactics and suffered violent attacks and attempts on his life. He published books and sermons, and continued to travel independently and with the SCLC. He became the de facto leader of the Civil Rights Movement. His influence and prestige was so powerful that Robert F. Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General at the time (and younger brother of President John F. Kennedy), ordered the FBI to tap Dr. King’s phone. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, John Edgar Hoover, began to investigate whether Dr. King had communist affiliations and, using the now-controversial Counter Intelligent Program (COINTELPRO), began to sew discord and distrust in King’s SCLC through a variety of means, including espionage and outright mistruth; it was an attempt to tear the SCLC apart from within and reduce King’s power.
Yet, Dr. King persevered, and in doing so, his work changed the global zeitgeist, merely by the boldness and genius of his actions and course. He took on the systemic racism, segregation, and the cultural caste-system of the most powerful country on Earth, through non-violent protest, The deprogramming of the dominant class, and civil disobedience. It was a courageous choice. Where his contemporaries and even the leaders before him chose an approach that matched hate for hate and bullet for bullet, or re-segregation and repatriation, Dr. King chose the only force that is truly transformative and powerful: love and knowledge. Treating his oppressors like wayward children, he disciplined with wisdom. In education, we are learning that punitive response isn’t enough; that is to say, merely punishing a child for their poor behaviors isn’t productive. Instead, we have to actively educate children on why their behaviors aren’t conducive to a positive social environment. We have to understand that children come into the world with no understanding of the social standards of behavior which human society has developed over millennia; we therefore have to curtail the natural urge to primitive behavior, teach why positive behavior is beneficial, and even reward it when possible. Like a teacher writing knowledge on the blackboard of a hate-filled national classroom, Dr. King took a similar approach. Punitive response isn’t enough; meeting their violence with violence consistently would only beget more violence. As it is famously said, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. He saw the long-path forward, not the immediate, emotional reaction. He realized that to sink to the level of the oppressor would ultimately wipe us all out. So, he sought to educate. He stood with strength, and matched that vile evil with love in a way that was enlightening to the oppressors, because he realized that their hatred was rooted in fear and ignorance. Ignorance, the lack of knowledge of another person or thing, begets fear of the unknown. Fear can be twisted in blame, and begets anger and resentment, which begets hate. Hate begets violence. And so on. Racist American was not only ignorant in it’s perception of African people, owing to the supremacist views taught since the days of European conquering, they were also deeply afraid that the African people they had enslaved would exact vengeance. Combine ignorance of the unknown, with fear of the unknown, and then add to that racist leaders who are able to twist those things and use them to target Blacks, and you have a recipe for the disaster that was post-slavery racism, prejudice, and segregation. Dr. King saw this, perhaps more clearly than any other leader of that time.
Knowing that most oppressors were slave to their own ignorance and the systems of oppression which they were taught, Dr. King undid that systemic brainwashing. He showed them that the so-called minorities of the country were not a lesser species, not livestock that could made to speak English and mimic human behavior, as was taught generationally by racists, and empowered by the supremacist and superiority-oriented mindset of European conquering. He instead demonstrated that all humans were equal, and that none was made, built, or ordained to be enslaved or abused by the other. He showed the human side of abuse: see, this is what happens when you hurt me. See my tears, see my blood. See the suffering of our children. Our tears are like your tears. Our blood is like yours. Our bodies are like yours. Our children, and our love for them, is like yours. Our beliefs are the same as yours. We merely want to live and be entitled to the same life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness which you claimed all humans were entitled to, and endowed with, by natural order. We are not violent, we do not mean to harm Whites, it is not an inherent function or factor of our nature, as racists had been taught. He showed them that while African Americans were angry, it was a righteous anger because they were being persecuted and stuck in systemic captivity; he showed that if equality and equity was restored, our righteous indignation could end, and we could all live in harmony.
Racism, prejudice, and supremacy depends on the oppressive majority believing that the people they are oppressing are meant to be oppressed, are inherently a threat to civilization, or do not feel the suffering of captivity. When people are raised to believe this, they rarely ask the crucial critical questions: are my beliefs incorrect, am I demonstrating blind faith to horrific tenets, and am I empowering a system that is responsible for the deaths of millions? Most White Americans, at the time, merely went along with what they had been taught. Only the ones in power knew the cost of those beliefs. Dr. King challenged the beliefs upon which racist and supremacy are built; so much so that only the truly psychotic could continue to actively exact racist violence against African Americans and People of Color, the minorities/non-dominant class in the United States’ race-based class system.
Moreover, he understood that the laws of the system had to be changed. In a society where the rule-of-law was considered the guiding force more than anything, perhaps even more than religion itself, Dr. King understood that if the laws could be changed so that they did not favor the evil of racism, then racism could be battled more effectively. That is, if I can challenge your brutality in a court of law, you have but two options of recourse: either you admit you were wrong or your must admit that your laws hold no merit and are subject to whim or preference. To dismiss laws in favor of racism would set a dangerous precedent even in white society: white criminals would see it as an opportunity for their crimes to be excused by using the argument that the very law was, in fact, subject to whim and preference. Even more, the changing of the law represented true and legitimate change in the country. It was not enough to pay lip service to the eradication of racism and hatred; it had to be on the books. It had to be a part of the guiding, foundational principles of the society. It had to be enmeshed in the fabric of social morality. To change the laws, though, required him to meet with those who held the scales of justice. And this is where Dr. King was most successful. He was able to meet with the greatest political leaders and the people who held the power in the country.
His contemporaries couldn’t get their foot in the doors of power. They were deemed too aggressive with their slogans of “By any Means Necessary”, “Freedom Now”, and “Black Power”; with their commitments to violence-for-violence; with their desire for expatriation to Africa or the creation of a Black-only state. Brother Minister Malcolm X (el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) was too powerful for the White Americans who were scared of the Nation of Islam with which he was aligned at the time. Stokely Carmichael with his “we have been too nonviolent” chants, and Huey P. Newton with his gun-wielding Black Panthers, were too frightening with their militant stances and shotgun readiness. Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer were women, and the only thing worse than a Black man was a Black woman, to a society that was equal parts patriarchal as racist. They were not heard or received as readily as the men were. Angela Davis was both too militant and a woman.
Dr. King, on the other hand, had the advantage of being a man, which appealed to patriarchal society, and being non-violent, which meant he didn’t frighten the racist class which was willing to change some, but still possessed of their old views. Because Dr. King rooted his fight in love, education, and the deprogramming of the racist class, because he was non-violent and had never been seen to promote violence, he put the racist white elites at ease. He was able to secure the meetings with the gatekeepers, and the people who held the political power in the country, in a way his contemporaries never could. He met with President Lyndon B. Johnson several times more to demand the changing of law. He was there when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law.
While he educated the racists, his non-violent stance at the same time, reassured the elites of the white supremacists power structure that he would not seek to overthrow their power. Some of his contemporaries saw this key element as a weakness, and as a sign of distrust. They felt he was working with the power of white supremacy, that he was bending and allowing himself to be used. The more radical leaders considered him to be a “house-negro”, e.g. the Black person who was preferred by racist white slave owners and allowed to live in the house in exchange for the expectation that they would help the white slave owners rule over the “field-negros” and would report any attempts to overthrow the racist power structure. They considered him an “Uncle Tom”, e.g. a Black man who supported racists whites more than his fellow men.
However, what they failed to realize was that Dr. King had understood that to truly help his people, he could not lead a war against the majority. Not only would it encourage and breed the very type of hate and distrust he was working to end, it would eventually lead to both sides being wiped out. Racists whites would feel their hatred was justified and that the stereotype that Blacks were violent and out to get them was renewed. The government, run by white people, would ultimately use military force against the Black protestors throughout the nation which might lead to an all-out genocide of Black people. His contemporaries did not fully understand the power of the system they were up against. Yes, Dr. King made concessions. He met with the President and the administration and sometimes urged his people to give up certain things in exchange for promises of law and support from the government; however, that was the only way he could get the laws passed that would ultimately help his people. Consider the Great Turnaround during the Selma to Montgomery March, and how his concession ultimately saved lives. On March 7, 1965, several hundred protestors attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery for a demonstration. County Sheriff Clark called for all white males in the area who were over 21 to be deputized at the courthouse so he could use them in violent actions against the protests. When the protestors arrived at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their route, they encountered State Troopers and the racist mob, who then proceeded to violently attach and beat them. Amelia Boynton was beaten unconscious and photos of her lying on the ground, bloody and bruised, along with other photos of the brutality to the protestors, were displayed to the world. This event helped gained support for the protestors and was decried by President Johnson. Dr. King lead a second attempt at the protest on March 9, which was to follow the same route, but he had secretly worked with Assistant Attorney General John Dora and former Governor of Florida LeRoy Collins, both working on behalf of President Lyndon Johnson. They had agreed to symbolically turn around the protestors at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. When his contemporaries and the other activists involved found out, many of them turned on him and began to distrust him. What they didn’t seem to understand was that Sheriff Clark would again be waiting for them at the bridge and was prepared to violently attack the protestors and even kill them all this time. By agreeing to the Turn Around, Dr. King honored the desire of the protestors to make a gesture, while at the same time avoided a more serious massacre by making concessions. He was wise. After all, what would it profit anyone for all those people to have been massacred. Moreover, Dr. King knew, from his meeting with Dora and Collins who had been sent by President Johnson, that the President was planning to intervene. Shortly after on March 11, Attorney General Katzenbach announced that the federal government would prosecute any local and state officials found responsible for attacking the protestors. On March 17, a federal judge ruled that the protestors could not be interrupted or attacked in their protests due to the First Amendment rights; he felt empowered by backing from the White House and President Johnson. A third march led by Dr. King was able to successfully take place, and durin gthe march, a “Stars for Freedom” rally was held where Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Jr., and many others performed for the protestors. Dr. King’s wisdom helped prevent a second Bloody Sunday event, which, no doubt, would have occurred had he not made concessions during the second march. He saw further than many of his contemporaries could. I posit that his concessions and nonviolent stance were not weakness or betrayal, but they were the wisest way to create the truly long-term route to peace.
Dr. King would receive many great honors in his work. Perhaps none so great as the Nobel Peace Prize, the most coveted award for those whose work is in changing the path of humanity for the better.
There were many other awards, and he led many other initiatives.
Ultimately, though, we know how this story ends.
I quoted the Architect from The Matrix movies earlier, comparing Dr. King to the film’s messianic character Neo. And once again I am reminded of the Architect’s words: “The function of The One is to return to the Source” to save the fictional city of Zion. If Dr. King was The One for our epoch, he certainly had a clue that his function as The One might one day require a return to the Source.
This man, who had struggled with Depression all his life, and attempted suicide at the young age of 12, was a man for whom four things were a constant companion: love, hope, melancholy, and a looming sense of doom. Like many who are committed to changing the word positively in the face of violent brutality, he knew that his story might end in martydom. When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, he told his wife:
“This is what is going to happen to me also. I keep telling you, this is a sick society.”
He, too, was a Christian. The deity of Christianity is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and one-third of the Triune Godhead, who came down in the form of a human man, and was crucified by Pontius Pilate in the Roman Empire. Studying the Bible, he had encountered that story countless time. There are other great Christian martyrs as well, who died to spread the religion or to save people from persecution. Dr. King knew that the work he did requires one to be at peace with the possibility of their demise. One cannot take on a system as powerful as the one he faced, which has so many people deeply mired beliefs of hate, without inevitably encountering the wild cards who would rather choose violence than to embrace love.
In his last year, his melancholy was rising. Shortly before Dr. King’s death, his friend Harry Belafonte says the two met, and Dr. King said:
“I’ve come upon something that disturbs me deeply. We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know we will win, but I have come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house. I’m afraid that America has lost the moral vision she may have had, and I’m afraid that even as we integrate, we are walking into a place that does not understand that this nation needs to be deeply concerned with the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Until we commit ourselves to ensuring that the underclass is given justice and opportunity, we will continue to perpetuate the anger and violence that tears the soul of this nation. I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.”
Yet hope remained. When Mr. Belafonte asked what they should do, Dr. King responded, “Be the Firemen.”
Yet that sense of doom never seems to have left him and it began reaching an apex. The night before his assassination, he gave a speech at Mason Temple Church of God in Christ, located in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there to speak about the Memphis Sanitation Strike, yet his speech takes on mythic qualities, as he waxes poetic about mortality and seems to foreshadow his own demise. Like Leto Atreides, the messianic leader from from Frank Herbert’s famous science-fiction novel “Dune”, Dr. King seemed to exhibit an oracular ability and a singular focus on impending doom. Consider these words of the speech:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
The next day, April 4, 1968, he died.
Dr. King was staying at The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He had a meeting planned that night. His last words were to his musician friend Ben Branch: “Make sure you play ‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand’ in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.”
He went out to his balcony and was struck in the cheek by a bullet fired by a sniper. It severed his jugular vein and major arteries, broke his jaw and several veterbrae, and lodged in his shoulder, leaving him unconscious and bleeding.
Dr. King was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 P.M. His biographer claims that during the autopsy, it was revealed that the condition of Dr. King’s heart was similar to that of a 60-year old senior; stress had taken on a toll on him. No matter what oracular vision, mythic perception, or messianic status may have been attached to him or possessed of him, he was, after all, only a man who wished to help humankind.
What follows, we also know. He was buried. His work was celebrated. He was raised to the level of a national hero. U.S. Representative John Conyers and U.S. Senator Edward Brooke led a mission to award him with a federal holiday in his honor. It didn’t pass at first. The King Center got help from major corporate and political figures, and the iconic singer/songwriter/musician Stevie Wonder released a song in his honor titled “Happy Birthday”. Wonder then hosted a Rally for Peace Press Conference. A petition with six million signatures was presented to the government. President Reagan opposed it first, then on November 2, 1983, Representative Katie Hall submitted a proposal for the holiday again which President Reagan supported. The bill passed and on January 20, 1986, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday became a national holiday.
Now, here we are, 33 years since.
We’ve learned more about Dr. King since his death. We’ve discovered that like all human beings, he was not perfect and he had private shortcomings in his life and marriage. Looking in retrospect, modern activists sometimes eschew his non-violent way for the more easily accessible way of hate-for-hate and petty activism; they say he was an example of respectability politics. They lack his nobility, strength, wherewithal, and his long-path bigger-picture sight. They also forget they stand on his shoulders. Yet, there are times when they are right. With the dawn of social media, we see so many videos of Black people abused or murdered in cold blood by racists and even police. Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, and many other names have gone from representing a human life to being a banner raised in the struggle. Black Lives Matter, a very simple and obvious statement, has become the name of a movement, because apparently, some still don’t get that…Black lives do matter. How long can we take abuse? Sometimes, fighting back is necessary survival, especially when, as Mos Def put it, “the length of Black life is treated with short worth”.
Even more, not all the hate of that era was squashed; it was merely silenced. It still insidiously spread through the generations in whispered ideologies. It’s re-expressing itself now. The current administration has become a rallying call, a signaling beacon for that old hate; reaffirming the racism of those masses which seethed as progress took hold. We’ve reminded that racism never went away, it merely became quited. Some, too ignorant to release it, held it close to heart, and taught it behind closed doors. Now they are emboldened again. In the wake of that, we are as weary as we are strong, as encouraged as we are frightened, as hopeful for unity as we are concerned that it may never come.
In this era, I am reminded of the relevant questions asked by Nina Simone in her classic tribute song to Dr. King. That she penned a song in honor of him, more than anything, speaks to his power. Ms. Simone was NOT particularly a fan of Dr. King’s in their day. She much more subscribed to the militancy of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Huey P. Newton. It shows in her music, in songs like “Mississippi Goddamn” where she laments that progress is too slow, then pronounces judgment by saying, “Oh, but this country is full of lies, you’re all gonna die and die like flies”. In “Backlash Blues” she wails, “all you have to offer me is your mean old white backlash” then says “I’m gonna leave you with the Backlash blues”. Perhaps, her most fiery pronouncement is in her cover of Exuma’s “Dambala”:
“You slavers will know what it’s like to be a slave. Slave to your mind, slave to your race. You won’t go to heaven, you won’t go to hell. You’ll remain in your graves, with the stench and the smell!”
There’s also this famous interview from Ms. Simone:
She exclaims: “If I’d had my way, I’d have been a killer. That’s true! I would have had guns, and I would’ve gone to the South and gave them violence for violence and shotgun for shotgun, if had my way”.
However, her respect for Dr. King, perhaps wrought by her Christian upbringing, was evident. She knew the power that restraint required and respected it. Though many political activists died, including the ones whose ideology she most shared, it was only for Dr. King that she penned a stunning tribute.
The song was called, “Why? (The King of Love is Dead)”.
The words of that honorarium ring in today’s climate, because, much has changed, but much has remained the same. As I think of our country, in the wake of the King of Love, her words echo my deepest sentiments:
“Once upon this planet Earth lived a man of humble birth, preaching love and freedom for his fellow man. He was dreaming of the day peace would come to Earth to stay, and he spread this message all across the land.
Turn the other cheek, he’d plead. Love thy neighbor was his creed. Pain, humiliation, death: he did not dread. With his bible at his side, from his foes he did not hide; it’s hard to think that this great man is dead.
Will the murders never cease? Are they men or are they beast? What do they ever hope to gain? Will my country stand or fall? Is it too late for us all? Did Martin Luther King just die in vain?
He’d seen the mountaintop, and he knew he could not stop. Always living with the threat of death ahead. Folks, you’d better stop and think, because we’re heading for the brink. What will happen now that he is dead?
He was for equality! For all people, you and me! Full of love and good will, hate was not his way. He was not a violent man! Tell me, folks, if you can: just why was he shot down the other day.
He’d seen the mountaintop, and he knew he could not stop! Always living with the thread of death ahead. Folks, you’d better stop and think, and feel again, because we’re headed for the brink!
What’s gonna happen now that the King of Love is dead?”
As we live in the Wake of the King of Love, Ms. Simone’s words remind us of a relevant question that we’re still asking in the 50 years since his death: “What’s gonna happen now”. More importantly, what are we doing now to determine that.
I hope that we each learn from one of his greatest sayings:
“I have decided to stick to love, for hate is too great a burden to bear”
—
Umohowet Yelayu is a writer from the Midwestern United States. His debut collection of poetry, Songs from Our Old Orbits, is available wherever books are sold. He is a writer for Blavity and Medium, and a musician, songwriter, and martial artist.
https://www.yelayu.com
